Walter Isaacson's authorized Steve Jobs biography just became Amazon's bestselling book of 2011. Which is pretty ironic, given that it's about a tech CEO who four years ago said "the fact is that people don't read anymore."

That sort of success would tend to undermine Jobs's 2008 statements to the New York Times. When asked about the Kindle e-reader, he said, "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore... Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole [Kindle] conception is flawed at the top." But then, that was the same CEO who said Apple wouldn't make a tablet or cell phone just a few years before it debuted a cell phone and then a tablet. Jobs tended to diss certain product lines, right up until the moment he developed an interest in co-opting them, refining a category and propelling it to new heights of success. It would seem books were no exception.